Smoking can damage memory

A new study showed that abstaining from cannabis or weeds for only one month could lead to improved memory and cognitive abilities, proving that weeds could impair memory in the first place.

The results of the study entitled "A month of cannabis abstinence in adolescents and young adults is associated with improved memory" were published in the latest issue of Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

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The researchers in the study tested 88 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 who regularly used cannabis. They belonged to Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. They were asked to quit marijuana during the one month trial. At the end of the study, they underwent a test and it was found that their ability to remember and learn was improved compared to the baseline of the study when they were using cannabis .

Participants were cannabis users who smoked at least once a week and who agreed to forgo the 30-day trial. They were compared to another group of users who did not stop using. Other factors such as learning, mood changes, basic cognitive skills, frequency of cannabis use, intensity of consumption, and so on. were all taken into account among all participants. At the beginning of the study, they all passed tests to analyze their thinking and memory. At the end of the month of cannabis abstention, participants had a "modest but reliable" improvement in their memory and learning abilities, as shown by the results of memory tests.

Lead author Randi Schuster, director of neuropsychology at the Center for Addiction Medicine in the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry, said in a statement: "The ability to learn or" spot "new information, a critical factor in success in class, improved thanks to the prolonged non-use of cannabis. Young cannabis users who stop using drugs on a regular basis – every week or more – may be better equipped to learn effectively and therefore better placed to succeed in school. "We can say with certainty that these results strongly suggest while continuing to consume cannabis may interfere with the learning process."

The authors noted that more than 13% of high school and college students used cannabis and that these rates were high among grade 8 and grade 12 students. They warn that adolescence is the perfect time for brain development and maturation and that the brain is at greater risk of cannabis damage.

This study was supported by National Institute for Combating Drug Abuse and the Norman E. Zinberg Scholarship in Addiction and the Livingston Scholarship at Harvard Medical School.